Readers of The American Cinematographer have frequently asked how modern animated cartoons are made. [American Cinematographer feels] particularly fortunate, therefore, in obtaining this series of articles in which Mr. Fallberg will detail the progress of a Walt Disney cartoon from the inception of the story-idea to the completion of the final technicolor print.
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THE home stretch has finally been reached when the cleaned-up animation drawings receive an "Okay for Inkers" from the director in sweatbox. From here on in, it's no-stops until the final Technicolor print is made. The tortuous path to that final okay has already been described — the multiple processes, the complicated steps, the vast amount of overlapping work necessary by many people to transform an idea into woiking animation drawings. It has been pointed out that a state of flexibility as regards changes exists during all of these processes, but when animation is "Okay for Inkers" the seal of approval has been put on it. The animation represents the best of the animator's ability to portray a story idea. The idea at last is ready to receive its final polish and be dressed up into color and form.
The period now arrives when all of the final elements that make the cartoon live on the screen are prepared, mixed and blended together into an amalgam of color, sound, movement and music. Of course, all of these elements aren't suddenly dumped into the picture at once, but are completed and added each in its turn. First, the animation drawings are traced onto celluloid, then painted and photographed over the finished backgrounds. Music, meanwhile, has been composed and recorded; final sound reels are assembled, and re-recorded into one sound-track which is added to the picture at the time the Technicolor release prints are made.
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